


The Past Unwound

by glim



Category: Les Misérables (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greece & Rome, Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-07 22:05:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4279590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Grantaire had met Enjolras in Athens.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Past Unwound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slightlytookish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlytookish/gifts).



> For Slightlytookish, who wished to see Enjolras and Grantaire in the classical world. (Sorry about the lack of Roman names! Perhaps for a longer story...)

Grantaire poured two cups of wine and placed one cup on the table that leaned precariously next to the couch in his studio. The couch was a cast-off from his parents' house, and the table was even more cast-off; Grantaire can't remember from where he obtained it, he was just glad it could stand well enough to support a couple wine cups and a few bits of parchment, plans for sculptures and dashed off notes to patrons about future projects. 

"Here," he said, then let his hand brush lightly over Enjolras's hair. "I wish you wouldn't let yourself get so upset about these things. You're nowhere near enough to even sit on the Senate, forget changing its mind." 

He lingered a moment, waited for Enjolras to glare at him, then walked away to fetch his own wine and to sit at the bottom of the couch. Unlike the table, the couch was a solid affair, meant for dining rooms and dinner parties. It could well support the both of them. Grantaire drained half his cup, then swirled the wine to watch it wash red against the edges. 

While Grantaire sat, Enjolras had stretched himself out along the couch as if he were reclining at table. He'd cast his toga off as soon as he'd entered the studio and exclaimed something about the Empire that would've been deemed treasonous if Grantaire gave any heed to such things. And perhaps he ought to have said something, if only to postpone that declamation that immediately followed his silence. 

Not, Grantaire supposed, that he minded listening or watching Enjolras speak. He was made for the Senate house--he spoke as if he'd never had to study rhetoric, as if the art had been one he had to discover, not learn. Only once he'd exhausted himself did he take his place on the couch and agree to wine. 

" _Let_ myself?" Enjolras said, finally, in a low and rough-edged voice. "I do not let myself become upset about these matters. How--are you not disturbed? It is just as Tacitus says, the _res publica_ has been long forgotten." 

"Of course I am." For you, I am, Grantaire thought, eyes once again on the swirl of wine in his cup lest they get drawn into the storm in Enjolras's eyes. 

*

Grantaire had met Enjolras in Athens. 

Of course he had. Their relationship--whatever that term meant in the context of their lives--wouldn't have played out the way it had if they had met in Rome. Life in the city was too clear-cut, too bound by familial and social obligations. No matter that they were both of good families; Grantaire's decision to spend his days learning more about the creation than appreciation of art had set him aside from the sons of most other senatorial families.

Enjolras had been in Athens to study philosophy. So had Grantaire, ostensibly. According to his parents, he was there to complete his education before going into the military. According to Grantaire, he was there to wander through temples and libraries, to learn all he could about a culture through its poetry and art. 

In the end, though, he was there for Enjolras. For the seemingly endless afternoons spent in debate over some philosophical topic--law, literature, natural science--that turned into long, lazy evenings. 

He could not blame the wine, though there had been plenty of that, too, for the sweet turn their lives had taken one evening. Enjolras's fingers curling against his palm as he took the cup that Grantaire offered him; his mouth, loose and pliant, as he kissed Grantaire, as if all their conversations, all their arguments and debates, had been leading up to this moment. 

A moment that could not have taken place in Rome; none of this, none of their long afternoons and slow evenings, not the curve of Grantaire's body around Enjolras's as he slept, none of that could have started in Rome. 

*

It would end in Rome, either here in the city or at some dreary outpost on the edge of the Empire. Grantaire had no need of prophecy or prayer to be able to predict that ending. 

He had decided, as they returned to Rome from Athens, that he would enlist in the army whenever Enjolras took his post in the military. 

And Enjolras would take the post assigned to him as the son of a Senator. He would accept the post with grace, and he would fight for the republic that he so dearly loved and he would fight for its return. 

Thus, so would Grantaire. 

* 

"You will come to the Museum?"

"The Museum," Grantaire said, "is a hovel in disguise as a wine bar. I highly doubt any inspiration received there ever came from the Muses themselves. I will be there," he added, and leaned in to press his lips to Enjolras's. 

There were days in Rome that felt as if they crept; there were days that sped by too quickly, morning running into evening without delay. 

The days were not like the ones in Athens, days that unwound slowly enough for Grantaire to be able to watch the early hours spin into the hazy afternoons. 

There were days like this, however: days where Enjolras would show up in Grantaire's studio in the middle of the afternoon, unperturbed by the tools and dust, his eyes bright and his countenance dangerous. 

"Good," Enjolras said. He repeated the word against Grantaire's mouth, breathless. "Good. I will have need of you there. I will," he said this again, too, when Grantaire shook his head. 

"I will clap loudly when you declaim to the citizens of Rome--" Grantaire broke off and brought his hands to Enjolras's face, stroked the tips of his fingers to Enjolras's jawline "--that perhaps it does not matter that there is nobody left alive who remembers the republic, but that there are those of us alive now who cannot forget it." 

Enjolras smiled, and the dangerous light of passion appeared in his eyes again. Grantaire did not say such things to earn those smiles; he said them because he believed them, because he believed that Enjolras believed them. 

Of course, he did not let the moment pass, and he kept his hands on Enjolras's face as he pulled him close to kiss him once more. Enjolras kissed as he spoke, fiercely, and with an almost painful eagerness. He kissed Grantaire in a way that made it clear that he would have need of him, as if his own breath and being depended on Grantaire showing up at the meeting tonight. His touch had the same rough urgency to it, hands moving to slide his palms over Grantaire's chest to rest there, warm and steady, as they kissed again. 

This could not have happened in Athens, this fierceness, this urgency, Grantaire knew, and was grateful that the days of his youth had already unwound behind him.


End file.
